On Cherry Street in Port Townsend, Washington, a confluence modern version of an ideabox prefab was installed. The 840 square-foot home has an open kitchen and living area flanked by two bedrooms / bathrooms on the ends. It sits perfectly on a small lot and the deck leads to a vegetable garden where the new homeowners will be able to live off the land, to a certain extent.

The new ideabox house has become quite popular in Port Townsend — once the deck was installed and the sunny, spring weather hit, purchase offers came streaming in. That’s understandable, because the home is Energy Star and Earth Advantage certified and comes with all the simple luxuries one could ask for in a home.

As of three months ago, a confluence modern could be purchased for about $85,000, making it highly competitive with the Clayton i-House that we talked about recently. Also, the small town of Port Townsend has a modern Dwelling Shed, which is kind of in the same category of small prefab homes. In any event, if you like these photos, this confluence modern will likely be open for tours soon, so follow the ideabox blog for updates …

Plants are Texting for Water Thanks to High-Tech Sensors
Usually, a plant that is dying of thirst can’t call for help. But that might change thanks to some new sensors that will allow plants to text for water. The farmer of the future might be getting more email from his crops than from his family & friends. And the sensors are not hard to install: “It’s akin to a clip on earring, very thin and smaller than a postage stamp, and is affixed to the plant leaf,” said Richard Stoner, President of AgriHouse, a company marketing the technology. Read on for more details….Go to Source

Hunting Threatened Species
Hunting for food certainly isn’t always bad – especially compared to factory farming – even if hunting has a big impact on animal populations. But if it includes hunting animals that are considered threatened or near-threatened by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, it just pisses us off (especially if you flew from the other side of the planet to do it). This safari website has a gallery of photographs of people proudly (and I mean huge grins) standing over the carcass of many animals th…Go to Source

A man stands in front of a centuries-old tree in Yosemite National Park. Photo by Buddhika Gammudali via Flickr.com.

There’s no denying the splendor of the giant trees that grace the west coast. But even giants aren’t impervious to climate change, it seems.

Just as Yosemite’s glaciers are disappearing, so too are the trees. An examination of data collected from the 1930s to 1990s has revealed that the numbers of giant, old-growth trees in Yosemite National Park have dropped dramatically during the 60-year span—and that worries resea…Go to Source

At first thought most of us tend to think of the oceans really only getting massively depleted of fish with the dawn of industrial fishing in the latter half of the last century. But as Fred Pearce points out in a new article for New Scientist, that’s not the case—humans have had a major impact on the world’s fisheries going back at least 1000 years:…Go to Source

We recently made mention of outdoor footwear company, Merrell, and their continuing campaign to get folk outside, in that instance to the Rothbury festival in July 09. Well, now they are at it again. This time teaming up with the US National Park Foundation (NPF), who Merrell say are an ideal partner with a shared passion. “ … our shared goal is to work together on a long term basis to educate and motivate people of all ages and activity levels to get outside and play in …Go to Source

All six of the Central Piedmont Community Colleges (NC) campuses were certified this March 2009 as spaces with Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Widlife Federation. While the National Wildlife Federation has certified thousands of locales, this is the first time any school has gotten all of its campuses in the club….Go to Source

Residents of Williamsburg, Brooklyn have long maintained a diehard devotion to their ‘hood. Home to microbreweries, skinny jeans and the hipsters who love them, organic/vegan/gluten-free cupcake shops, and now, a yoga studio that fits right in with this manifold mix.Sangha Yoga Shala, a newly opened studio and boutique, offers a mélange of classes that vary from vinyasa to restorative, from prenatal to Pilates, and everything in between.

Sangha Yoga Shala (“community yoga house” in Sanskrit) maintains its commitment to the community in simple ways: toxic-free mat and floor cleaners, in-house recycling bins, using solar heat and energy. And unlike many other studios, Sangha doesn’t provide bottled water for purchase, instead encouraging its students to drink from the filtered tap in cute ceramic mugs, created by a local artist.